Recently I had several contacts enquiring how to perform upgrade from a Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 (MCMS2002) to a Sharepoint 2007 Publishing site. Although this is not a “click-click” process, there isn’t much to it. Or is there?

The basics:

for data upgrade (call it items, content or whatever you like), there is a feature out of the box to drive the process: Content Management Server Migration (available at Central administration > Operations)

for all the rest: get a comfortable chair, a good development machine and ride on the development process. This includes:

Page layouts

Master pages

Web User Controls

Webparts

Custom Navigation

Workflows

Events

and basically any CustomWhateverYouNeed that doesn’t come ou of the Sharepoint package.

“So, where do I start?” you may ask… I would say: “Plan it!“.

In the planning effort, you will realise:

the volume of information you are about to migrate

the artifacts you may require and those you need to develop/upgrade

define multi-language requirements and plan for variations

enumerate workflows, jobs and events

etc

With this in hand you can more accurately estimate and cast light into the dark zones of the process.